Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-12-Speech-3-274"
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"en.20030312.8.3-274"2
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"Mr President, I too should like to thank the rapporteur for her brilliant report. In terms of equality policy, we have unfortunately begun far too late to focus upon money rather than upon mere words. When we do indeed focus upon money, we shall be able to attach some real figures to inequality. In this area, the EU’s Structural Funds are its handiest tools for redistributing resources, firstly between the regions and secondly between population groups. They must therefore be seen as key tools for achieving one of the Community's overarching goals: equality between men and women.
As both Mrs Avilés Perea’s report and analyses by quite a few women’s organisations show, however, the gender dimension has not, as Commissioner Diamantopoulou
pointed out
been anything like adequately incorporated. The fact that this has not happened is one issue. Another issue is that, when we address one of the major challenges for the EU – namely enlargement – we shall be faced with still greater challenges in the area of equality. We are now to have an array of new Member States with traditions and histories different from our own and, therefore, with views of the concept of equality different from that which we have in the existing Member States.
The Communist regimes considered the oppression of women as something peculiar to capitalist societies, and sexual equality was therefore officially introduced. This meant that women were to go out to work and to take part in political life. In return, nurseries were set up, maternity leave was introduced and abortion was legalised in a number of countries. It worked in the sense that the proportion of women in the labour market was high in relation to what it was in the existing EU countries. The other side of the coin, however, was that, in many cases, women experienced their work as nothing more than a mere duty, and not as a right, and there was no question at all of equal wages and therefore, of course, no question of equality either.
It can now be seen that, with the transition to a market economy, unemployment has hit women hard, and unemployment is something women will often associate with accession to the EU. The EU must therefore make an extra effort to convince women that the EU is something other than a crude market economy. It is in this area, moreover, that the Structural Funds have a central role to play, specifically through their representatives in the different countries knowing how to practise mainstreaming and how to involve women in projects, for otherwise there will be no projects beneficial to women, precisely because the latter are not in the first place well disposed towards the market economy and the EU and because they have the historical background I have already described. In this context, I hope that Commissioner Diamantopoulou
will follow up on what she has already said along the lines of our being alert to this issue and that she will also intervene if it proves that there has been no proper mainstreaming. I am, moreover, completely convinced that all of us who are here this evening will happily help her."@en1
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